New Features on Twitter

The new features on Twitter.com are great news for online marketers and will ultimately provide Twitter with a far more efficient way of making money than its previous “promoted tweets” ads.

All of the new features are designed to increase users’ engagement with the content other users post – whether it be video from YouTube or geotagged maps from FourSquare, users can now see everything in a slick, self-contained window without having to click through numerous pages. The implications for brands using the new features are great.

Earlier this year Pixar were one of the first companies to pay for promoted tweets, in the run-up to the release of Toy Story 3 – opinion among experts is very much divided as to whether this paid trending tactic actually worked but, had the new twitter embedded video features been available pre the launch of the movie, imagine how much more compelling the promotion would have been. Rather than just seeing the static text “#toystory3” in the trending box, you would have been able to see trailers of the movie, comments that your followers had made on it and where it was going to be screened near you.

Naturally the new features will take impressions away from other third party sites creating more potential for the site to earn increased ad revenues but you can’t deny that it will provide a considerably richer and more engaging experience to consumers.